Tag: taxation

Defund, Dismantle, and Disavow

Kent McManigal

Minneapolis is “threatening” to defund its police department? It’s a good first step… if they are serious. I have my doubts.

Abolish the police!

Isn’t it odd how an idea which has been around less than 200 years is now imagined by so many people to be essential for civilization. Especially when that institution is utterly antithetical to civilization and society. This societal cancer (or is it a virus?) is said to have begun in London, England in 1829 and spread from there. It should have been smothered in its crib.

Abolish the police!

But, yes, defund the police. Not only in Minneapolis but everywhere. And then refund the money to the victims of theft (“taxation“) so they can provide for their own security if they so choose.

Abolishing the police would get rid of the police union, too. A valuable bonus. Government employee unions are a lie anyway.

Dismantle the whole institution until not one stone remains stacked on another. And don’t replace it with anything. You have to disavow the whole concept of government police. Otherwise, someone might try to establish a new legislation enforcement gang later.

Abolish the police!

If people want to hire security– and pay for it without the ability to force those who don’t want to chip in to pay anyway– that’s their right. They don’t have the right to hire enforcers and force everyone to pay for them– they never did.

Government-supremacists are terrified of abolishing the police. They are afraid of what would happen next. Sure, some are probably afraid of rampant crime, but I’ll bet more of them are even more afraid of people finding out they never really needed the Blue Line Gang in the first place. Once you figure this out it’s not that far to realize you don’t need politicians, either.

Abolish the police! It will be OK. I promise.

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“Liberty is good, but…”

Kent McManigal

I notice people’s buts. Not their butts (well, in some cases…); their “buts”.

They advocate liberty, but… and I notice.

“Liberty is good, but…”

…they believe government schooling (including vouchers, etc.) is necessary for education, and will discuss twiddling the dials, but never abolishing it.

…they still think the cops or military are somehow “good guys”.

…they imagine it’s OK to have government control who comes or goes, what you do with your property or body, etc. “For your own good.”

…they believe “taxation” is necessary for some things that no one wants bad enough to pay for voluntarily.

…they want to be protected from all the things they’re scared of.

…they insist you obey legislation, even if it’s unethical, until someone changes the “law”.

…they can’t imagine living without government telling them how they should live.

…and on and on and on.

It’s as though they are desperate to be taken seriously by government-supremacists for some reason. Maybe to be allowed a place at the table.

Or for a patronizing pat on the head.

Liberty doesn’t come with any buts. It just is. You either accept it as it is or you reject it.

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The Answer is Always Individualism

Isaac Morehouse

I just saw an article by venture capitalist Marc Andreessen called “It’s Time to Build.”

I’m both encouraged and troubled by it.

I’m encouraged to see anything promoting and celebrating human achievement, instead of just shitting on wealth and promoting envy.

I’m troubled because it begins with the premise that “We” have failed to do really big giant things. It’s a small step from “We need to build bold things” to a technocracy where everyone is forced to put their resources to uses dictated by scientistic managers with grand plans.

I’m troubled because Silicon Valley sometimes seems to long for any kind of “Big” effort, no matter how much of a boondoggle, or whether it’s backed by force or funded against citizens will via taxation.

It mentions how “We” need to overcome regulatory capture. Well that only happens if the state shrinks, and big, unified, central visions imposed on the populace die with it. You can’t reduce capture and also increase state-run Hoover Dam type projects. Silicon Valley is naive about Public Choice Theory and the way real-world political incentives play out predictably.

I am ALL for big, massive, bold visions.

I want to terraform other planets. I want flying personal vehicles. I want limitless energy. But I know that such visions are only beneficial and not dystopian in a world where individual freedom trumps the desires of any small group of people. Those efforts and advances will only be wonderful if visionaries can persuade individuals to embrace and engage them voluntarily, and part with their resources to fund them without threat of force or artificial incentive.

Absent freedom, none of these big bold builder visions are inherently good and can quickly turn evil.

Some Silicon Valley types seem to want a world of endless tech innovation whether the market demands it or not and whether individuals choose it or not. A world controlled by the nerds. I am not accusing Andreessen of promoting this. But I do see an easy shift from his progress promotion to progress coercion, animated by the collectivist spirit of the age.

Anti-Silicon Valley types seem to want to steal all the money from the successful and prohibit people from progress. A self-defeating and soul-sick approach.

While I agree that anti-progress is awful, pro-“big ambitious projects” is not by itself a less scary ideology. Only individual freedom is. Progress nested in choice.

I once wrote about how Virginia Postrel’s Stasist vs Dynamist dichotomy (progress vs. tradition) is usefully paired with Thomas Sowell’s Constrained vs. Unconstrained vision (reality vs. utopia). I think it’s very applicable here.

Dynamism is only a force for good when nested in a constrained vision. Otherwise it becomes technocracy.

Article here. Chart below.

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Government-Supremacist Assumptions

Kent McManigal

You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes with a magnifying glass. Government-supremacists are easy to spot by the bad assumptions they naturally make and wave around in public.

They’ve always argued over how to spend “tax” money; they won’t consider the fact that “taxation” is theft.

They’ve argued over what should be taught in government schools, but never questioned government control over (and destruction of) education.

And now they argue over whether it was the right move to issue stay-at-home orders and cripple the economy, but they never consider that no one has the right to do so.

It’s not government’s place to decide to shutter the economy to “save” lives from coronavirus or anything else. They don’t have that right and they shouldn’t be allowed to have the power.

It’s never an “adult decision” to govern other people (the political means) rather than letting them work it out for themselves (the economic means/the market). It’s the most childish thing anyone can do. No one should be allowed to make those decisions and decide for you what you will be permitted to do with your own life.

They also substitute government-supremacism for thinking in other ways.

If you are making the dishonest argument that to fail to sufficiently cripple the economy on account of the coronapocalypse is going to kill 50,000 additional people (or whatever your number might be), without taking into account those who will die because the economy is being destroyed, you aren’t contributing anything useful.

You can’t know how many the virus will kill, nor do you know how many will die from the effects of a shut-down. The number of dead from the shut-down could well vastly outnumber those who die from the virus, making the “net deaths from coronavirus” being tossed around a completely fake number. Any discussion of “net deaths from coronavirus” without taking those a shut-down will kill into account is– as of now– a lie calculated to limit the discussion to government-supremacist answers.

To pretend that someone has sufficient information to make such a decision, or the right to impose it, is to be dishonest. It’s what makes one a government-supremacist.

Government edicts and orders are the opposite of responsibility. You have the responsibility to not violate the life, liberty, or property of anyone else. Government-supremacy is explicit irresponsibility and is shameful. No matter who exhibits it or what excuse they grasp at to justify their violations. I have no respect for government-supremacists; they deserve none. They’ve worked hard to prove that.

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Don’t “Tax the Rich”

Kent McManigal

There’s an important fact that is missed by the “tax the rich” folk– besides the fact that “taxation” is theft whether they like to admit it or not. (And they don’t; they HATE it. It makes them crazy.)

If you “tax” wealthy people you are stealing from me.

Even if you don’t “tax” me, directly.

Even if you give me some “benefits” from it. I don’t want a cut of the loot.

You are stealing money he might use to start a business that would benefit me. Or money she might use to buy something from me. Or money he might donate to me because he has so much excess and can’t figure out how to use it.

But even if none of that happens, you are funding antisocial political government to my detriment.

It’s just as bad as calling for Big Business to “pay more taxes”. It’s a lie. I can’t afford for you to “tax” anyone.

“Taxation” steals from me even if it never touches me otherwise. It steals money, opportunities, and liberty.

I will never support a plan to “tax” anyone, for any reason, ever.a>

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Statism’s Reality Rejection Immune Response

Kent McManigal

Statism insulates itself (or pretends to) from reality by automatically disqualifying all opposing views. It’s like an immune response.

To say “taxation is theft” means you aren’t a “serious part” of “the conversation”; you are automatically ignored because to fund Big Political Government, theft… I mean “taxation“… is necessary. Anyone who doesn’t like taxation is automatically disqualified from being taken seriously. According to the view of government supremacists, anyway.

Yet I don’t entirely disagree with their entire argument. “Taxation” is necessary to fund political government. No question. That’s part of the reason “taxation” is unethical. There’s also the whole “theft is unethical” thing, too.

That’s not the only subject where they play this trick. It happens all the time. And it’s a lie every time they do it.

I understand, when you have no real argument you do every sneaky thing you can to “win”. You’ll shut out any other voices however you can. You’ll reject ethics because it gets in the way of what you want to get away with doing. But that doesn’t make it right. It just compounds the wrong you’re committing.

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